"H'm. You are becoming sarcastic, young man. But I feel we are treading on holy ground. Let us look to ourselves. How often do you give the child Holy Communion?"
"Every Sunday and holiday."
"Has she asked for more frequent Communion?"
"Yes, indeed; but I hesitated."
"Hesitate no longer. Digitus Dei est hic."
Of course, I had seen all this myself; for in a quiet, unconscious way this poor child had manifested even to my purblind eyes the dealings of God's munificence with her. By degrees all the old vain regrets after her beauty had yielded to perfect resignation; and resignation had grown into peace, and peace had been transformed into rapture.
"I used be thinking, Daddy Dan, a good deal of what you said to me—how these poor bodies of ours were but a little lime, and phosphorus, and water; and that we must all go through the terrible changes of death; and what you told me of that great saint in Spain and the dead queen; but it was only when Father Letheby read to me about our Lord, 'a worm and no man,' 'a leper and accursed by God and afflicted'; 'and one huge sore from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet'—that I began to think He had made me like Himself, welcome be His Will, and Holy be His Name!"
Then I got her a fine big brass Crucifix from the Passionist Fathers at Mount Argus, and left her to her wonder-working and merciful Master. But she has impressed Ormsby profoundly. "The weak things of the world hast Thou chosen to confound the strong." "Thy ways are upon the sea, and Thy pathway on the mighty waters, and Thy footsteps are unknown."
"Well, now," I said to Father Letheby, getting out of my reverie, "to come down from the Holy Mountain, what's this you are saying about the shirt-factory? You don't mean to aver it is a fait-accompli?"
"Certainly," he replied, "everything is arranged; and on the 20th a dozen sewing-machines will be clicking merrily in the old mill."